Hey all, I was a late-night lurker last year (still am, judging by the time on this post), but I decided to make an account, if only to provide one more cautionary tale and perspective.
Did all the research last year, fell in love w/ every place I applied to, as I am wont, knowing full well the odds were against me, but despite it all, I managed to get accepted into a fully-funded fiction program!
Well, sort of...
Due to the pandemic, I never got a call, just emails from one professor (who was very nice) letting me know that I was in--they wanted me!--but that everything was in disarray what with the country going to hell as it was. So, as the days of limbo dragged into just past the April 15th resolution date, I was eventually informed that the school had decided to cut their assistantship funding to only one person. And though I was apparently second in line, the first person accepted. I'm happy for them, though sad at how small their cohort may be.
Anyways. What with everyone working from home or considering career changes, I'm slightly (selfishly) worried that there will both be a giant influx of applicants this year combined with a tightening of budgets. That these previously reported fully-funded programs are no longer. Maybe not, though. Hope not. As far as I can tell, I may be the only one round here that went through such as this.
So, I'm working a little in reverse here and will be applying to a bunch of mostly new, bigger schools that I didn't have the gumption to try last time. As pointed out, though, even those that are not listed as fully-funded DO fund some students. I'm not from this kinda academic world and didn't understand that the first time. So maybe there's some more hope. As long as we all keep working, writing, gotta believe there's always hope.
tl;dr: Got accepted last year, lost funding; trying again this year.
P.S. I think it's funny that the only place most internet people know about semicolons is through tl;dr
